It seems somewhat impossible to read an article about Ke$ha without coming across a reference to Lady Gaga, presumably because Ke$ha just broke Gaga's download record, selling 610,000 copies of her song, "TiK ToK" to Gaga's 419,000 copies of "Just Dance." With this information in mind, Entertainment Weekly asked if, perhaps, Ke$ha might be "the Gaga of 2010," a question that caused a bit of a ruckus amongst EW commenters, who quickly declared their loyalty to one singer or another. As you can see, people became quite passionate about things:

psb1962
Fri 01/08/10 2:25 PM

THAT'S LIKE COMPARING APPLES TO LEMONS..GAGA IS AN APPLE AND KESHA A LEMON!!

psb1962, as you can see, is a Gaga fan.

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There's nothing particularly new about the media (or the record labels) positioning two up and coming pop stars against one another in an attempt to garner publicity for both, and yet it's been about 10 years since the days of Britney and Christina, who took the reins from Debbie Gibson and Tiffany, who themselves took over as pop rivalry queens once the battle between Madonna and Cyndi Lauper began to die down. There have certainly been some pop rivalries brewing over the past 5 or 6 years (Aguilera, as well as Roisin Murphy, have had their issues with Gaga, as well) though it seems like the energy that used to go into picking your favorite singer (while secretly buying and loving the record of her rival) has since been given over to tabloid "Team" nonsense involving actresses, actors, and their messy affairs.

Of course, the pop star rivalry works both ways: on some levels, it's irritating that Gaga can't just be Gaga while Ke$ha is just Ke$ha, as opposed to one being a replacement—or worse, interchangeable—for the other, and yet on the other hand it's exciting that female pop stars are commanding enough attention both from the public and from the record labels to kick old school rivalries back into gear.

So what do you think, commenters? Are rivalries ultimately good for female pop stars? Or do the rivalries overshadow the actual music? Feel free to add your thoughts, as well as your memories of the Cyndi/Madonna, Debbie/Tiffany, Christina/Britney days in the comments.